~ Raised in a fundamentalist, rapture-believing, Pentecostal household, I came out gay at 20 after much self-reflection and spiritual journeying, which has led me to become an intersectional feminist, socialist, and a member of the #Resistance. I am currently a sociology grad student and quasi-working class millennial, living in New Orleans. In this nook of the Internet, I describe my experiences, recollections, and opinions on social politics.

Last Friday, I went to my parents’ house – surprisingly – finding it empty. There was still laundry to do, and my parents were to be back later. Going to my parents’ house, gives me the time to watch cable, and if anything, more than likely I pick something gay I can’t get on Netflix. I was happily surprised to have landed on MTV just in time for Laverne Cox Presents: “The T-Word.”

There were various young trans men and trans women represented at first. There was a New Yorker, a Californian, another Californian…. The trend that I’ve been sensing outside of the T-Word, itself, and in general was starting to agitate me. But wait, NEW ORLEANS. I gasped, “OMG I think I’ve seen this woman in the Quarter before, too!” The woman was black and trans and spoke out about the racism and transphobia she and other trans women had been experiencing from N.O.P.D. There were pictures of her in sights I’ve been through multiple times and issues that I had heard of various times. A special thank you to Laverne Cox for finally getting someone in the LGBTQ+ media genre out in the South.

The Netflix series, Orange is the New Black.

If you’re in an LGBTQ+ organization at all, you will hear not only about queer inclusion but also racial inclusion. There are questions of representation for gay black men, Latina trans women, Asian lesbian women, and etc. The race issue is finally evolving, and you can see it coming into media as the genre starts to widen. Also the issue of age is being brought up in LGBTQ+ media very much in organizations and representation between middle-aged trans women, elderly gay men, elderly lesbian women, and even tween gay youth.

I watch multiple LGBTQ+ themed shows at a time from Queer as Folk to The Fosters to HBO’s Looking, and yet, I really love these these show but my subconscious quest for southern representation is highly unsatisfied. HBO’s Looking is set in the most stereotypically gay city – San Fran. The L-Word is set in Los Angeles. The Fosters is set in Pasadena. Orange is the New Black is set in New York. Transparent is set in Los Angeles. Will & Grace is set in….New York. California, New York, California, New York……. Even TV programs with token gay roles like Danny in Teen Wolf are almost always set in either of the two. Are you not queer until you live in New York or California? Or do you just have to visit? Maybe that’s why I’m gay. I came out a year after I visited Los Angeles…

Even in LGBTQ+ movies, the scarcity of southern representation is ridiculous. We have our few documentaries like Southern Comfort (chronicling a transgender conference held annually in the South) and some Mississippi gay bar documentary that is more obscure than Oz Gay Club in New Orleans.

You may think I’m forgetting Texas’s representation because though it’s not “exactly” the South..it’s there, but Faking It does not count. The show emphasizes these LGBTQ+ youth being popular at their school because of their oddness. Longhorns is a joke of a movie, which is probably even more obscure than that Mississippi gay bar documentary.

Queer as Folk is one of the few American pieces of LGBTQ+ media that captures the queer struggle for social and political rights. Justin is a victim to a hate crime for having Brian as a date to prom. Ted is fired at his job for looking at gay porn and not straight porn. Liberty Avenue has a situation similar to the Stonewall Riots of 1969. Michael is forced out of his job for being gay. Ben deals with having HIV/AIDS (that says enough). Melanie and Lindsey struggle with heterosexism in public institutions as a domestic family of them and their children. It captures a lot of what is happening now in the South, but…it’s in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. There is Emmett Honeycutt from Hazelhurst, Mississippi, but the setting is still everything and his Southern origin is not an explicit characteristic. As similar as it might be to some southern queer struggles, it’s still vastly different.

Emmett Honeycutt of the TV series, Queer as Folk.

While most LGBTQ+ media is set in places with same-sex marriage rights, hate crime laws, ENDA state laws, and the liberty of adoption, gay youth are twice as likely to commit suicide in highly religious areas, which embodies most of the South by the presence of the Bible Belt. Transgender women are even more likely to be victims of a hate crime or even homicide (i.e. a queerphobic hate group holding a trans woman hostage for days in Natchitoches, LA). Of the 31 states with gay marriage, only two of them are Southern states (North Carolina and Virginia). They are not in the Deep South either (if that means anything to anyone else). Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee are labeled approximately in the top most LGBT-unfriendly states. Mississippi and Alabama have barely if at all any civil rights for the LGBTQ+ community. Louisiana has very few, and the same goes for Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, South Carolina, and Florida. Let me repeat again as a factor of the queer oppression – the Bible Belt.

Besides Laverne Cox’s documentary, I’d say the most airtime given to LGBTQ+ Southerners was character Bobby Ray in Sweet Home Alabama, which is impressive considering the release date was in 2002. Bobby Ray even endures some real southern homophobia even as a good ole’ southern boy. He is practically an underrated queer icon for the South because that’s as much as we have. Let us not forget that he is a middle-class, young, white, cisgender male, too.

Bobby Ray (in the middle) of Sweet Home Alabama (2002).

Not only is queerphobia not talked about enough in its own media but what is happening around the country, especially in the South, where your queerness is highly up for discrimination. Representing LGBTQ+ people is not only the problem, but also the ridiculous racism in the South that Southern black gay men, black lesbians, and others experience from even the LGBTQ+ community. The South is highly concentrated with both homophobia and racism, so why not bring this intersection to the public? If we want the LGBTQ+ community, especially its youth, to feel understood and comforted, then that definitely includes their experiences geographically.

(I apologize for my long comeback to the second part of this blog set. School, life, spirituality has been crazy busy, which comes with new questions and doors.)

There were a few personal friends that came out before I did (as I mentioned before) that cleared some things to make things easier for me. There was also a lot I learned by myself (and directed by God) about myself, the gay male community, the queer community as a whole, my family, my friends, theology, queer media, and etc. When you come out, your worldview immediately changes and keeps changing, your beliefs get tested, your relationships get tested (fast!), and you come to newer realities.

If you are queer and/or a queer Christian, here are some highly suggested “Do’s and Don’ts”:

Do….

tell those you know will support you first and start from definitely supportive to not supportive at all (unless you’re really “I don’t give a f***” like I got).

There are also quite a number of epiphanies I discovered within the community itself (some being very similar with my own) that I did not know until after coming out, and here are only a few interesting situations.

Gay males are much, much, much more vocal about how attractive you are than straight women. Many gay males I have found come to even be embittered by how “disempowering” straight women’s lack of affirmation can be, especially with comments of being “cute” without any specific context of “cute.” Later, they will soon discover it is because of patriarchy, though, that they are not as affirming. Male privilege gives us the “right” to be so vocal about how attractive someone is, which fortunately for us, will transcend out of the closet, too.

Every queer’s grooming habits and self-care will dramatically change. I started to shave more often and think healthily about my own body, especially with the help of positive comments from other gay males. Other people I have found, losing weight for the sake of internal health, improving their hair care, or even lack of body care but not unhealthily. Overall, people start to feel differently for the shell they’re in, while sometimes it being negative. I do see there is a lot more hope and journeying to a better healthy image than the reciprocal in radical numbers.

Queer people are inherently more intuitive.

Lesbians are the most monogamous stereotypically and realistically.

Transgender people transcend not only in gender identity but also in quite a number of ways in sexual orientation, too.

All out queers will have questions regarding spirituality and they will vary dramatically more than any other people group. Yet, they will respect each other more than any other people group. I have met many queer Christians, but also have met gay deists, bisexual atheists, pansexual Buddhists, queer secular humanists, transgender nihilists, and etc.

One’s queer oppression will very likely nurture the mercy they give to many, many others.

Lastly, the queer liberation movement is intersectional and over-arching to the liberation of all movements including but not limited to black, Latin, disabled, women, prisoner, impoverished, blue collar, animal, and elderly because they include queer people include people related to and/or intersecting with other liberation movements. It is spiritual.

To conclude, I will leave with Dr. Patrick S. Cheng, who quoted, “Coming out is like baptism in that LGBT people let their old closeted lives die and are born into a new life.”